3-time CGA Player of the Year Colin Prater and fellow Coloradan Luke Cushman gear up for CGA Match Play with top-10 finishes at Southwestern Amateur; 2 CU golfers also place in top 10
By Gary Baines – 6/14/2025
When Colorado resident and former CGA Player of the Year Davis Bryant won each of his back-to-back Southwestern Amateur titles in 2022 and ’23, that event overlapped — schedule-wise — with the CGA’s first open-age major championships of those years, the Match Play.
This June, the two tournaments are being held different weeks, allowing some of Colorado’s top amateurs to compete in both events, if they so choose.
And with the 125th CGA Match Play being held Monday through Friday of next week — starting at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora and concluding at Denver Country Club — two prominent players geared up for the championship by posting top-10 finishes on Saturday at the Southwestern Am in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Colin Prater of Colorado Springs, a three-time CGA Les Fowler Player of the Year who competed in the U.S. Open last year, tied for seventh place at the Southwestern and is scheduled to go for his second CGA Match Play title next week. Prater, winner of the 2020 Match Play, posted rounds of 73-67-70-70 for an 8-under-par total in Scottsdale.
Also tying for seventh place at the Southwestern was Luke Cushman of Castle Rock — another player entered in the CGA Match Play. Cushman, a Boise State University golfer who claimed his first individual college title earlier this spring, went 69-68-73-70 in Scottsdale.
Also recording top-10 showings at the Southwestern were University of Colorado golfer Brandon Knight (third place at 12 under par overall, four strokes behind winner Hartej Grewal) and incoming CU player Jackson Rivera (sixth place at 9 under).
Among those joining Prater and Cushman in next week’s CGA Match Play field are defending champion Matthew Wilkinson of Centennial, two-time Colorado Open winner Brian Guetz of Littleton, and recent U.S. Junior Amateur qualifiers Ash Edwards of Boulder and Austin Hunt of Highlands Ranch.
Held concurrently as the 125th CGA Match Play will be the 110th CGA Women’s Match Play. Like the men’s event, it will run Monday through Friday, starting at CommonGround and concluding at Denver CC. Among those scheduled to compete are 2025 girls state high school champion Landry Frost of Colorado Springs and former state champs Hope Torres of Broomfield and Aubri Braecklein of Northglenn, and five-time CGA Women’s Senior Player of the Year Kris Franklin of Westminster.
For all the scores from the Southwestern Amateur, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com